Mercenaries
by kyle.sturrock.1
Summary: For added revenge, Tharja sends a mercenary band after Lina and the gang.


**Mercenaries!**

**What's Zel Doing**

**Here?**

The fire burned brightly, but the chimera sat away from the group. The Stonewall Knights' camp was rather small for a sellsword band, but they were the strongest mercenaries Ylisse had to offer- or so Lord Gyral liked to think. Zelgadis wasn't here for honour like Gyral, or gold like the rest of the band, but for information. The group's magic user was an arrogant warlock named Garlen, no different to any other low level mage other than the fact that he was in possession of what was possibly the last copy of an ancient book known only as The Conjurer's Tome. Garlen used it for simple summoning spells during battle, but Zelgadis knew its true purpose, it contained every spell related to golem creation ever written by humans. He looked at himself, skin like stone and hair like wire, he was an abomination. A monster. A beast. His golem form had proven useful in the past, but he needed to return to being human.

"Oh gods..." Tharja groaned, "I will kill all of them. I will kill that smart-ass sorceress, that idiot swordsman, that insane girl _and _that pathetic priestess."  
"Mother, you mustn't keep going after them. Look what happened last time!" Noire had been relatively unharmed in the last battle and Henry had been able to heal himself, but Tharja had more burns, cuts and broken bones than she could count. She had spent the last week in the tent of a travelling healer named Narcisse who had been doing her best to help. Narcisse wasn't enormously good at magic, but she was one of the greatest surgeons they had ever met.  
"So Narcisse, how long until she can walk again?" Asked Henry politely.  
"Another week if she's lucky I'd say."  
"Aw man, she seems so much angrier when she can't get up and hit people."  
Tharja looked up at Henry's stupid face with his stupid smile. She closed her eyes and started muttering an incantation. Henry screamed as the ground below him exploded and he flew out of the doorway of Narcisse's tent. "Heh heh. As long as I can hurt people, I'm happy."

"Hey, come look at this!" One of the knights, Zelgadis seemed to remember his name being Cornelio, called to the rest of them. A small crowd formed around the area until they were silenced by Gyral. He towered over the rest of the band at nearly seven feet tall. He had short grey hair and wore a huge amount crimson plate armour. His helmet was off revealing his old, grizzled appearance. "What is the meaning of this?"  
"This shadow! Look at it!"  
"Hey." Said the shadow.  
"Greetings." Replied Gyral, nervously.  
"You're a mercenary group, right?"  
"That we are."  
"Henry, come out!" A white haired man in a black robe and a girl wearing a tight green tunic and a bow on her back appeared from some bushes lugging a large chest, which they dumped at Gyral's feet. He kicked it open to reveal a huge amount of gold, jewels and other precious treasures. "I'm looking for some people dead."  
"We are not mere assassins, most clients hire us to fight armies!"  
"Oh believe me, these people are much more powerful than most armies."  
"Hmph, I suppose this much gold is enough for anything. Who is it?"

"Aw man I'm so hungry, why didn't we get more food in the last village?" Asked Lina.  
"Lina, we ate literally all the food at the inn! I think we put the owner out of business!" Replied Gourry.  
"Well, I guess he didn't have enough, did he?"  
"Miss Lina you can't eat every scrap of food in every village in the world! Then what would everyone else eat?" Scolded Amelia.  
"Ah, I guess. Hey," She pointed towards a small camp in the distance, "maybe they have some food they could share with us. Amelia, go check it out."  
"Why me?"  
"Because you're fastest... or something. I don't know just do it."  
Amelia jogged over to the camp. There were a dozen heavily armed mercenaries who immediately turned to look at her. "Uh... hi. My friend was wondering if she could..." She looked around and saw that several of them had started drawing their swords.  
"That's one of the people we're looking for, isn't it?" One of them said to another.  
"Yes, get her, damn it!"  
Suddenly Amelia found herself surround by knights in full armour, all of whom seemed to want her dead. "Um... hey! You shouldn't draw your weapons just like that ! It's impoli-" She was cut off by a sword swinging down towards her. She leapt out of way. "Hey! You mustn't attack random people! That isn't justice! WAH!" Amelia jumped over a low swing then immediately ducked under a higher one. "Eek!" She cried as several more swings narrowly missed her. She leapt at one of the knights and used his helmeted head as a step to jump up into a tree. The knights crowded around the base and began muttering amongst themselves until three more figures appeared. The first was a man with long red robes, a pointed beard and a large tome in his hands. The second was a huge knight in heavy crimson armour holding a massive greatsword over his shoulder. The final one however... was Zelgadis. "Mr Zelgadis!? What are you doing here?"  
"I'm sorry Amelia, I'm one of the Stonewall Knights now."  
"You mean you've left the side of justice for your own gain?"  
"This is about more than gold Amelia. I could have a chance to return to my human form."  
"There's no excuse for joining a group of brigands! JUSTICE KICK!" Amelia leapt from her tree towards Zelgadis. Then she flew straight past Zelgadis and crashed into another tree. "...Ow..." Amelia lay on the ground, dazed.  
The red knight chuckled, "A shame. Our client made you out to be a deadly fighter, I'm disappointed it had to be this easy. Well, no hard feelings, but it's time for you to die." He began to approach Amelia when there was an explosion behind him that sent several of the knights flying in different directions. "What the-" Everyone turned to see Lina and Gourry. "Once again, saving the day is the beautiful and invincible Lina Inverse!"  
Gyral grunted. "Damn it, kill them both!" The remaining knights charged towards them.  
"Gourry, could you deal with them? Looks like they have a sorcerer and I wanna beat him myself." Before Gourry could protest, she was gone and he had a small army of knights attacking him. One swung a sword at him and he dodged. Another stabbed at him and he moved to the side of it. He swung his own sword only for it to be deflected by another one. These knights were obviously well trained.

"So you're Lina Inverse? I am Garlen, the instrument of your destruction."  
"Oh really? This I must see." Garlen opened his tome and began reading.  
"Unholy nightmares untold, let your powers unfold, open your dark tower and grant me limitless power!" Seven large, crimson scorpions appeared around him.  
"Neat trick, blam blazer!" The scorpions scuttled toward her and she began blasting them with bolts of red energy until they lay destroyed on the ground. "Cute, now what was that about my destruction?" Garlen backed away.  
"That would be me." Lina saw Zelgadis approach her, sword drawn.  
"Zel? What are you doing here?"  
"That isn't important, what is important is that I need to kill you. FIRE BALL!" Lina leapt over the attack and landed behind Zelgadis with her own sword drawn, which bent when she attempted to stab him.  
"Oh, right, stone."  
"Yeah, nice work Lina." She threw away the remains of her sword and backed away from his own swing.

Amelia shook her head and began to stand up. "Huh? What happened?" She saw multiple fights happening. "Well crap. Managed to raise some hell this time."  
"Hey, you. You look like an inferior magic user, die!" She spun round to see Garlen and a large troll behind her. "Troll, attack!"  
"Uh oh." The troll swung its club at her and she leapt out of the way. "Flare arrow!" The arrow opened a large wound in the troll's torso which healed quickly. "Sir, it's very rude to set trolls on random people!"  
"I know you idiot, I'm trying to kill you!" Amelia leapt over another swing and landed on the troll's back. The monster grabbed at her and she dodged. "Useless monster, FIRE BALL!" Amelia managed to avoid the fire ball, but the troll wasn't so lucky. She look down at its charred body, it looked like it would take quite a while for _that _to heal.  
"Random evil mage I've never met, I'm bringing you to justice!"

Gourry kicked a knight and followed up with a sword swing that knocked the man off his feet. He parried another attack and riposted with a blow that left the knight unconscious. "Worthless idiots, what am I paying you for?" The crowd of warriors parted to reveal Gyral. "Let me show you how a real knight fights." Gyral swung his two handed sword and Gourry narrowly avoided his attack. Gourry answered with an attack from above that Gyral parried. Gyral thrust his weapon and Gourry deflected it, taking the attack off its intended course and plunging the sword into a nearby tree. Gourry's sword clanked off of Gyral's armour, leaving a dent where it landed. Gyral's armoured fist collided with Gourry's face. When Gourry opened his eyes just in time to roll out of the way of an overhead swing about to hit him. He swung his sword and it connected with Gyral's helmet sending him staggering backwards, allowing Gourry to get to his feet.

"Levitation!" Lina rose into the air and began raining down fire balls on to Zelgadis. He managed to avoid them but the forest was very quickly beginning to catch fire.  
"Lina you fool, look what you're doing!" Cried Zelgadis, but Lina was to high up to hear him. "Elmiquiel lance!" A bolt of blue energy hit Lina, knocking her out of the sky.  
"Oof. That's it. Darkness beyond twilight..."  
"Is she doing what I think she's doing? Oh crap. Dwelling within the eternal and the infinite..."  
"Crimson beyond blood that flows..."  
"Source of all souls, everlasting flame of blue..."  
"Buried in the the flow of time..."  
"Let the power hidden in my soul..."  
"In thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness." By this time, all the fighting had stopped and the combatants simply looked in horror, dreading what was about to happen. Gourry was the first to come to his senses,  
"Everyone, RUN!" The knights, Gourry, Gyral, Amelia and Garlen all scattered in different directions, but it was too late.  
"Dragon..."  
"Ra..."  
"SLAVE!"  
"TILT!" Red energy burst out of Lina and blue burst from Zelgadis, when they met, it caused an almost cataclysmic explosion.

Lina opened her eyes. There was a huge crater where the forest had just been. She gazed over it and saw Zelgadis lying on the other side. Good, that meant she was the first to wake up. She began standing up only to stumble and fall over again. "Wow, maybe combining two of the strongest spells in existence wasn't such a good idea." She managed to get up to her feet and walked unsteadily towards Zelgadis. She picked him up and shook him awake.  
"Ugh. What happened? Lina?"  
"Let's just say whatever you though would help you get back to normal is... probably blown up."


End file.
